In an opinion article in Thursday's New York Times, Ms. Rice contrasts Iraq's behavior with countries such as South Africa, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, which voluntarily disarmed. She says those countries led inspectors to weapons and production sites, answered questions before they were asked and carried out disarmament openly and quickly.

Ms. Rice says, in contrast, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and his son Qusay head their country's concealment activities - thwarting the work of U.N. weapons inspectors whenever possible. She said Iraq is failing "in spectacular fashion" to provide answers about its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.